In a first, a former Anglican priest has been consecrated as a bishop in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. Located in Great Britain, the ordinariate was created to give Anglicans a pathway to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church.
Bishop David Waller received his episcopal ordination in Westminster Cathedral in London on June 22, which is the feast day of the English saints John Fisher and Thomas More.
Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, imparted the episcopal blessing. Also presiding over the Mass was Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster and Bishops Stephen Lopes and Anthony Randazzo, heads of the Anglican-Catholic ordinariates in the U.S.-Canada and Pacific-Australia.
During the Mass Fernandez spoke on the “treasure” of the Church’s apostolic succession, beginning with St. Peter and the apostles and continuing to this day, saying: “What I have received from the Church, I now pass onto you.”
As bishop, Waller will lead the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which has parishes throughout England, Scotland, and Wales.
Members of the ordinariate participate in a Mass and liturgical tradition that is rooted in Anglican patrimony while still being in total union with the pope and the Catholic Church.
Along with its sister ordinariates in the U.S.-Canada and Pacific-Australia, the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham was established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 through his apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus. Though open to Catholics of all backgrounds, the ordinariate primarily exists as a way for former Anglicans to be received into the Catholic Church while still retaining many of their English traditions and practices.
While the ordinariates in the U.S. and Australia have their own bishops, neither of whom were former Anglicans, Waller is the first bishop to lead the ordinariate in the U.K. Previously the Walsingham Ordinariate had been led by Monsignor Keith Newton, a former Anglican who was ordained a priest in the Catholic Church but could not be ordained a bishop due to being married. Newton, who is 72, is retiring.
In an OSV News interview, Bishop Waller said he had been “surprised and shocked” by his nomination, announced on April 29, and had spent time, as the ordinariate’s vicar general, working out how to satisfy the “criteria and qualities” required by Rome.
However, he added that he had been “inspired and encouraged” by prayers and pledges of backing from the ordinariate’s priests and lay members, as well as former fellow clergy from the separated Anglican Church of England.
Msgr. Keith Newton, the ordinariate’s outgoing head, told OSV News the ordinariates created by Pope Benedict XVI came under the direct jurisdiction of Cardinal Fernández’s dicastery — rather than the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops — giving it a “special interest” in its future development.
He said the ordination of the British ordinariate’s first bishop would “make a substantial difference,” and added the cardinal’s personal involvement signaled his “confidence and interest.”
“We have several priestly ordinations pending, with others being trained for holy orders in the usual way at London’s Catholic Allen Hall seminary,” said Msgr. Newton. As a former Anglican bishop with three adult children, Msgr. Newton was ordained a Catholic priest for the ordinariate, but he could not be ordained a bishop owing to ancient prohibitions on the practice shared by Catholic and Orthodox churches. Instead, he was made a priest-ordinary overseeing the ordinariate, but lacked the ability to confer ordination — a status similar to a chorbishop in some Eastern churches.
“Some people have long thought the ordinariate was just some kind of temporary arrangement — but this shows it will form a permanent part of Catholic life here,” he said.
Ad multos annos!
